And if there was a lot of deadness in the post-Vietnam hangover, there were also bright spots that have continued to inform culture for the past 40-odd years. We're not entirely sure that The Partridge Family was one of those bright spots, but in his youth, your author whiled away many an hour watching the show. Its theme song, “C'mon Get Happy,” is seared into the consciousness of just about every American between the ages of 35 and 60.

In the interest of keeping a foot in the 1970s while pandering to modern interests, VW has enlisted Jamaican music icon Jimmy Cliff to offer up a fresh, reggae-infused take on the tune. Cliff, 13 years senior to the Partridge Family's David Cassidy -- and only three years younger than Partridge matriarch Shirley Jones -- has managed to remain relevant in a way that Danny Bonaduce has not.

He's there to add cred to the kitsch, to serve as a serene, joyous center to chaotic cultural detritus rendered flesh in the form of folks made briefly famous via YouTube clips.

In the above making-of video, (and in the teaser VW released last week), those who landed their 15 minutes based on internet-video freakouts ascend a hill in a scene that riffs on the famous “I'd like to buy the world a Coke” spot from 1971.

Associating these sorts of meme-wonder folks -- many of whom are already forgotten -- with Cliff suggests some sort of equality among cultural artifacts; that a tossed-off moment in front of a camera is equal to an artistic oeuvre that spans decades.

Would it be callow to suggest that one ask Abraham Zapruder that question? What galvanizes us in a moment could be something carefully considered and meticulously constructed or something off the cuff. Volkswagen's paired the two and hopes that you'll consider the galvanized construction and German engineering of their vehicles.

Mass-market network television. The hardscrabble streets of Kingston. The always-connected society of oversharing. Corporate sporting spectacle. One could speculate and dissect the meaning of all this. No doubt, pointy-headed doctoral candidates will.

Everyone else will ingest it in a foggy, beer-and-Cheetos-deadened haze on a lazy Sunday, perhaps noting the presence of the I-just-really-love-cats lady. A lady whose clip, by the way, was a put-on.